Fred Whitaker was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. His family lived in a working-class community. His maternal grandfather was a butcher. They lived with his grandfather, who died when he was five years old. His father was a supervisor in a butter plant. When he was six years old, his father was promoted and they moved to Long Island, New York. When he joined the Army, he was sent to California for ASTP [Annotator's Note: generally referred to just by the initials ASTP; a program designed to educate massive numbers of soldiers in technical fields such as engineering and foreign languages and to commission those individuals at a fairly rapid pace in order to fill the need for skilled junior officers]. He was sent to Stanford University [Annotator’s Note: in Stanford, California] for basic engineering training in 1944. They ended up canceling the training because they needed more foot soldiers. He was put into the field artillery. He was sent to advanced training before D-Day [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. They practiced abandoning the ship. They would practice at night. They would go to bed with their clothes on. They boarded the Queen Elizabeth and then headed overseas. They were fed two times a day. There were 18 thousand troops on the ship. They arrived in Scotland, then boarded a train and went to England. A British family was very accommodating to them. They would use the bathroom and in return give the family butter, which was rationed.

Fred Whitaker crossed the channel [Annotator’s Note: the English Channel between England and France] and landed at Le Havre [Annotator’s Note: Le Havre, France]. They bivouacked [Annotator's Note: a bivouac is a temporary campsite] in an apple orchard. They went to the eastern front of France to help clean up what was left. He saw men get blown up and their remains were all over a tree. The Sherman tanks [Annotator's Note: M4 Sherman medium tank] were outgunned when they went up against the Panzers [Annotator's Note: panzer is the German term for armored and typically refers to tanks] with 88 mm guns [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery]. They eventually got tank defense guns. They lost many men. Their battalion was transferred to another unit. General Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] took over the combat role in North Africa. Colonel Cobb [Annotator’s Note: US Army Colonel Robert B. Cobb] was put in charge of their battalion. He was one of the most outstanding commanders in their division. Cobb was in charge of the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945] from their perspective. Whitaker was running and jumped into a foxhole with a German hiding inside. He choked the German and then realized the soldier had frozen to death. That is how cold it was during the Battle of the Bulge.

Fred Whitaker remembers the Battle of the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945] was the death blow to the Germans. The Germans were running out of human resources. The Americans had the advantage that their equipment was being built on American soil which was untouched by the enemy. [Annotator’s Note: Whitaker talks about the Air Force.] They got to the Rhine River and there was a meadow with the high ground. When they were in the forest. the Germans were shelling them. The splinters from the trees were as dangerous as metal fragments. A shell landed in front of Whitaker on the ground. He got lucky and did not get hurt. The Germans were waiting for them to cross the river. They were fed two meals a day. They were going to cross the river at night. The Germans shot up flares and it made it almost as bright as day. The Germans were using anti-aircraft guns to blow the boats out of the water, and machine guns fired across. [Annotator’s Note: Whitaker talks about Colonel Robert B. Cobb.]

Fred Whitaker remembers some soldiers were decapitated because the Germans would put wires across the roads. They started to put angle wire on the front bumpers of their vehicles to cut the wires. They would get into positions to cut off the Germans who were fighting other companies on a different side. [Annotator’s Note: Whitaker describes a soldier getting knocked down by a fragment of a shell.] They would go through the towns to see if there was chicken wire in the windows of buildings. When they made it to the next town, Whitaker had a run-in with a German soldier. He was the chief of police for the town and responsible for their safety assigned by Colonel Cobb [Annotator’s Note: US Army Colonel Robert B. Cobb]. Whitaker went to a shop to have his photograph taken by the enemy.

Fred Whitaker went to the 50th Anniversary of Victory in Europe Day [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945]. It took months to get from Le Havre, France into Germany. It took three days to get back to the coast in a truck at the end of the war. They came up to Lucky Strike Camp [Annotator's Note: one of the transit and rehabilitation camps in France named after popular cigarette brands; Lucky Strike was near Le Havre, France] and their K rations [Annotator's Note: individual daily combat food ration consisting of three boxed meals] had three cigarettes in them. They took a ship back to the United States. They had a 30-day furlough [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] before starting training for the Pacific to help General MacArthur [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander, Southwest Pacific Area] and Admiral Nimitz [Annotator's Note: US Navy Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Sr., Commander in Chief, Pacific Fleet]. On 9 August 1945, they dropped the second atomic bomb [Annotator's Note: nuclear weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, 6 and 9 August 1945]. A few days later, the Japanese surrendered. The Japanese did not respect those who surrendered.

Fred Whitaker was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts in July 1925. He had one sister. He enlisted on 17 June 1943. He picked that day because it was the anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill [Annotator’s Note: a battle of the American Revolutionary War on 17 June 1775]. He was a corporal when his service ended. He wanted to serve during the war, but not during peacetime. He went back to school at Stanford University and joined the ROTC [Annotator's Note: Stanford University in Stanford, California where he joined the ROTC, Reserve Officer Training Corps]. Serving during peacetime is hard on family life. He was discharged on 5 January 1946. The Army had a points system [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home]. He spent time putting his World War Two album together. He spent one year at Miami University [Annotator's Note: in Oxford, Ohio]. His father had remarried. He went out to California. The first job he got was selling dictionaries from house to house. Next, he worked as a shipping clerk. He started a building washing company with a friend. They washed grocery stores and other local businesses. He went back to school in 1950 and graduated with honors. He started working for a traveler's insurance company. He moved to San Francisco [Annotator’s Note: San Francisco, California]. In 1957, he was transferred to Los Angeles [Annotator’s Note: Los Angeles, California]. He had gotten married.

Fred Whitaker learned to make lists of things to do from the Army. The Army had an intensity he had never experienced before. [Annotator’s Note: Whitaker talks about his strategy for solving problems.] The children appreciate the sacrifices that were made, and how the war changed the world. There cannot be a successful democracy without educated citizens. He believes young people will rise up again for their country because there is residual patriotism. Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] had issues because the country was not unified before the war. The education of upcoming generations is critical. Children are more impressed by actions than words. Freedom is not free.